


For Once, Just Say It

by SylviaNightshade



Series: Resolutions Are Hard to Come By [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: A serious amount of internal struggle, Angst, Angst and Feels, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Arguing, Awkward Conversations, Bisexual Mike Wheeler, Coming Out, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Friendship, Gay solidarity, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Internalized Homophobia, Lesbian Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Lots of friendship talk-therapy, M/M, Maxine "Max" Mayfield is a Good Friend, Mike Wheeler Loves Will Byers, Post-Canon, Self-Reflection, post-season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:33:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22191109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylviaNightshade/pseuds/SylviaNightshade
Summary: "You always talk about El, but... Will's gone, too. Don't you miss him?""Yeah.""So, why don't you ever talk about it?"ORMike & Max bond over Will & El being gone
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper/Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Maxine "Max" Mayfield & Mike Wheeler, Will Byers/Mike Wheeler
Series: Resolutions Are Hard to Come By [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1597369
Comments: 25
Kudos: 171





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so season three still got me drowning in feels thus this fic/series was born. I have no idea when I'll be finished, as usual. Anyways, enjoy this reinvention of the angst fest we all experienced before realizing The Gay. But with lesbian Max to guide the way.

He’s in the basement again.

Mike has seriously been spending way too much time down here. Since they left. Since his world for the past eight months was upended.

He’s been called sentimental before. Stubborn, clinging to the past. Depressed, maybe. What’s the difference? All of it involves folding into himself, turning thought over memory. So, he spends his time remembering things he can’t have back. Sitting in El’s spot, sleeping on the couch, looking through their old things. The millennium falcon is out on the table beside their D&D board and figurines. Bins of toys he’s supposed to have thrown out. Folders full of their ideas.

One folder in particular has drawn his interest today. Mike pulls out the worn pages, traces the colors. _Will’s drawings._ The persistent twinge in his chest from recent weeks encourages his guilt to resurface. Just another piece of his best friend, left behind.

He sighs and flips to the next drawing. More of the same, Will’s watermark embedded in every shape. The four of them dressed in ghostbusters gear. Mike lets his eyes linger on Will’s figure. He never draws himself right. He’s always pressed too close to the edge of the paper, too small, too insignificant in his own eyes.

And there’s that guilt again. It’s been eating at him for long enough now that Mike knows exactly why it’s there. But he pretends not to, because he’s accustomed to his own unhealthy coping mechanisms and avoidance is his golden rule for dealing with confusing emotions. He releases a frustrated huff and slides the paper away.

“What are you doing?”

The voice almost scares him shitless. Mike looks up to see Max poised on his stairs, frowning as usual.

He frowns back immediately. _Great._ Just what he needs— the one person prone to mocking his sensitivity _._ His irritation at being startled gets the better of him. “Nothing. What are _you_ doing?”

Max shifts her weight. “What do you mean?”

“This is _my_ basement. Why are you here?”

“Um, chill maybe?” Max descends the rest of the stairs, reflecting Mike’s irritation. “Lucas sent me to get one of your stupid walkies.”

“Oh.” Mike looks to his right. “They’re in the bin.”

He watches Max warily for a second before looking down at where his hand rests, on another of Will’s sketches. It’s a rather detailed roaring dragon. Mike smiles softly at the starry pattern laid inside it— just like Will’s wizard costume. All of it is still here, around him. Like he’s encased in the only good parts of their childhood. The parts that weren’t real.

He slides the dragon across the table with the rest of the pictures and looks to the next one. And he almost stops breathing.

It’s him. And Will. And the fantasy is washed away in this one.

Will is huddled in the spore-filled forest, Mike in the one with clear air. But neither of them look happy. The upside-down is drawn as a barrier between them, each with their backs against it.

Mike picks it up with trembling fingers. How has he never seen this? Why… why did Will leave this behind? Why did Will even draw this? His heart aches suddenly for his best friend’s voice and his avoidance is flashing on high alert.

“What’s that?”

Max is leaning over the table, walkie in hand. Mike pulls the drawing back against his chest. “Nothing. It’s nothing.” She can still clearly see the rest of the pages, so he relents. “Just some old drawings.”

He tries to subtly fold the paper small enough to tuck away, and Max examines the rest of them. “Did… you draw those?” she asks.

Mike secures the disturbing image in his pocket and clears his throat. “No.”

“Who did?”

 _Who did. Yeah. About that._ Mike has to force his mouth to form the name. “Will.”

Max’s expression changes. “Oh.” She moves her hand from where it was, trailing it over the pages, and looks back up at Mike. “You must… really miss him, huh?”

That’s an understatement. “Yeah.” The tug at his sternum forces him to change his answer before things get too weird. “I miss both of them.”

It’s not a lie. His heart aches just as much for El. ~~But in a different way.~~

Max nods. “Me, too. I mean, I didn’t know Will very well, but… he always managed to make me smile.”

 _Yeah_ , Mike wants to say. _He was good at that._ But he bites his tongue.

“I do miss El.”

Her name sends images of her brown eyes through Mike’s head. “Yeah,” he agrees. He thinks of her lips, her hair, her hands outstretched. He thinks of her voice on the radio, and how he hasn’t heard it. And all of a sudden there’s too much pressure and it’s splitting his skull. Because El is a subject in direct conflict with Will at the moment and he’s not a fan of what that implies and he needs to be alone to not think about it.

So he frowns at Max. “Aren’t you leaving?”

She scoffs at him. “What, so you can cry down here by yourself? Okay, I get it, Wheeler.”

“Shut up!” Mike snaps. “I wasn’t crying.”

“Sure.”

Max rises to leave while Mike fumes at how easily she can press his buttons. It only takes ten seconds for him to realize he doesn’t want to sit on his ass down here moping. Even though he does. But that’s what he’s been doing for five days straight and it’s… tiring.

“Max, wait!”

She pauses on the fifth step, turning back with a blank face.

Mike sighs because now he’s gonna have to apologize. “I’m… sorry. I’m just really…” _Sad? Angry? Confused? All of the above?_ “I’m just feeling a lot right now.”

Max’s expression lifts to amusement, or mockery. It’s usually one in the same with her. “Well, it’s okay to feel things, you know.” She takes two steps down and sits. “Your girlfriend is in another state; it sucks.”

 _His girlfriend._ The word stings. “That’s the thing,” Mike says, glancing at her from the couch. “I don’t know if she’s my girlfriend anymore.”

That seems to throw Max off. “What?”

Mike shrugs, though the situation is all but casual. “She hasn’t radioed me in weeks. And when I called the house, Jonathan picked up and he said she was fine, so I can only assume that she’s been avoiding me.”

It hurts even more hearing it out loud. His love life of late, summed up in two pathetic sentences.

He looks up at Max to see her biting her lip and looking guilty. He narrows his eyes. “Has she talked to you?”

Max opens her mouth, closes it, then sighs. “Mike… she hasn’t told me anything about you two, honestly.”

Mike laughs bitterly, tossing his hands in the air. “Great. Amazing. I’m the only person she doesn’t want to talk to.”

Max is quiet, and Mike sinks back into his thoughts, his theories as to what went wrong. Besides her losing her powers and then Hopper and then having to move away. All of which lends precedence to the ‘it’s her not him’ theory, but who is he kidding? He’s always the problem.

Max’s voice interrupts him again. “I can… ask her, if you want? If something’s going on.”

That surprises him, considering how much she values El’s privacy and independence. When Mike checks her face, though, she looks sincere.

He considers it. As nice as that would be, Mike doubts El would give Max any information if she hasn’t already. She’s more of a direct person. Which is why the lack of communication disturbs him. But he shakes his head. “No, it’s okay. She’ll… talk to me when she’s ready, I guess.”

Max blinks, and her mocking face is back. “Wow, Mike. That was uncharacteristically mature of you.”

“Shut up.”

Despite himself… Mike does like Max. He might not appreciate her bluntness or her stubbornness or her ferocity, but she’s reliable. He likes her a bit more when she hoists herself up from the stairs and walks over to plop beside him on the couch. “Hey,” she says, reassuring. “It’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna see them again.”

However true that may be, Mike’s not entirely sure he’s ready to see them again. His emotional combustion is stronger than ever and there’s this hurt there that’s just… eating at him. And he’s too afraid to pinpoint where it’s coming from.

He nods anyway. “Yeah.”

~<:>~

Mike sleeps in his room that night, but he brings the picture with him, so he can stare at it under the lamplight, in the minutes before he nods off. Will looks so scared. And Mike looks as lost as he feels right now.

He dreams about a tidal wave destroying Hawkins, but when he opens his eyes under the water, it’s the upside-down. Demogorgons swarming a tiny figure, glowing from the Christmas lights bundled in his arms. Mike swims as hard as he can, but he’s stuck in place, watching.

He wakes up before the light is snuffed out, and the picture is lying on the floor beside his bed, face-up and taunting him. He folds it back into squares and puts it in his shoebox. When he falls back asleep, the only thing waiting for him is darkness.

~<:>~

“Hey.”

Mike opens his eyes against the sunlight, and Max moves to shade him, red hair glowing. “Hey,” he replies, hauling himself up onto his elbows. “How did you find me?”

“I wasn’t looking for you,” Max says, sitting down beside him. “ _I_ came up here to be alone. What are _you_ doing?”

Mike looks over at the radio tower and the discarded walkie lying beside it. “I, uh… I thought I could get a better signal.” He shrugs. “But.”

“Still no word?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing.”

Max twists the grass in front of her. “Did you talk to Will?”

The guilty twinge makes an unwelcome appearance. “Uh, no.” He feels like a coward for saying it, even if it is true. “No, I haven’t talked to either of them. You?”

Max sighs. “Well, El told me a few days ago that she needed space. I guess she’s taking a break from both of us now.”

She sounds like her usual self when she says it, but Mike senses something underneath. Like the sadness he feels. The abandonment. He almost asks her about it, but she changes the subject before he can. Almost like she’s deflecting.

“School starts soon.” Dramatic pause. “ _High_ school.”

Mike groans, leaning back onto the grass with an arm flung over his eyes. “Don’t remind me. I can already picture the locker my face will be smashed against by the end of the first week.”

“Hey.” Max smacks him lightly. “If anyone smashes your face against a locker I’ll staple their homework to their forehead.”

 _Wow, okay_. Mike pulls his arm back to eye her incredulously before sitting up laughing. “What the fuck?”

Max looks completely serious. “Believe me, I will.”

“I do believe you,” Mike assures her. “I still have flashbacks to you almost taking Billy’s dick off with that nail bat.”

At the mention of Billy’s name, the smile fades from Max’s eyes, and Mike immediately curses himself for being so cavalier. “Yeah,” Max laughs, quietly and without humor.

“Sorry.” _He’s such an idiot_. “I didn’t...”

Max shakes her head, though she’s still clearly upset. “Don’t worry about it.”

They both sit, significantly more tense, on the dirty ground, taking in the air of loss. God, just _being_ here reminds Mike of El, and of Will, and everything that happened. He really can’t go more than two minutes without missing them, can he?

Unsurprisingly, Max seems to be feeling it, too. She sighs. “You know, I really miss El. Like... a lot.”

Mike instinctually frowns at her confession, because it sounds like an attempt to redirect the conversation, but her sentiment appears genuine. “You do?”

Max turns to him, hair blowing gently over her knee. “Well, yeah. We got pretty close over the summer. And, I mean, before that I always liked her.” Mike watches her stare out into the distance, almost _longingly_. “She’s... pretty special.”

Mike presses his lips together. “Yeah, she is.”

Max looks back at him, searches his eyes as though contemplating something. “You know, if you ever want to… talk about her, or Will… about how you’re really feeling…” She offers a small, but genuine smile. “I’m always willing to listen.”

Mike has his eyes narrowed, wholly confused as to what’s going on with her that has her acting so nice. “Why?”

He must have curled his lip when he said it, because Max’s vulnerability drops and she abruptly stands. “God, you are such—” She glares down at him, releasing the tension in her shoulders and shoving her hands down for emphasis. “An asshole.”

Mike is too startled to say anything, and watches her retreating figure all the way down the hill.

~<:>~

It is later the following day that he comes to a rather obvious conclusion and bikes to Max’s house to apologize.

He only has to knock twice before she answers the door. Upon seeing him, her face flattens defensively, but she doesn’t slam the door on him, so at least she’s curious enough to hear him out.

“Hi,” Mike says.

Max blinks. “Hi.” When Mike fails to respond, she raises her eyebrows. “What are you doing here?”

That snaps him back into action. “Right. So, I thought… um, I thought that, based on the other day… maybe _you_ wanted to, or needed to, talk about it? About... everything that happened, and... about El?”

Max barely changes her expression, but it’s enough to let Mike know he’s reached the correct conclusion. He lets his posture sag. “I know I’m kind of an asshole,” he admits. “It’s a post-childhood traumatic stress development to my personality.”

“No, it’s not,” Max says immediately, but she’s almost smiling.

“No, it’s not,” Mike agrees, even though he was working on that sentence the entire ride here. “I mean, maybe it is, but I—”

“Mike.” Max holds up her hand. “It’s okay. I’m used to your shit.” She pushes the door open wider. “Come in.”

Mike follows her, catching the door quickly. “Um, okay.”

The house is empty, per usual, but more stark than he remembers from his single visit. And it’s pretty free of any personal affects. No photographs on the walls as they climb the stairs. When they get up to Max’s bedroom, it looks surprisingly neat, untouched, like it’s been cleaned out.

Mike spreads his arms at the space. “Wow. What...?”

“Yeah, uh, I’ve been sleeping in Billy’s room,” Max provides and a wave of relief washes over him, followed by a wave of sympathy.

“Good,” Mike says before he can stop himself. “I mean, for a minute there, I thought maybe you were moving, too.”

Max scoffs. “Not a chance. If we do, I’ll just stay in your basement.”

That was a major redirect that Mike doesn’t blame her for taking, but still. Ow.

He tries to be casual. “Yeah it’s a popular hideout.”

Max fiddles with the hem of her shirt. “Didn’t… she stay there? When you found her?”

So, they are talking about this. Mike supposes this is why he came over here in the first place. It has him suddenly questioning why he did. Avoidance was such bliss. But he nods, barely suppressing a grimace. “Yeah.”

In the spirit of ‘opening up’ he lets the memories unfold. “It was crazy. This bald girl in a yellow t-shirt. I can’t really describe what possessed me to take care of her. I just, I knew she had something to do with Will disappearing.”

He falls silent at that. Stupid fucking tug in his chest.

“That must have been really hard,” Max says. “To lose your best friend and then... to lose her. I mean, I’ve talked with Lucas about it but I guess it was different for you.” She pauses. “You loved her.”

Mike buries his panic about Will and resolves to only mention how he feels about El in order to sort out one thing at a time. “Yeah...”

They move to sit on Max’s bed at the same time. It’s a weird moment of synchronistic thinking and they both let out nervous laughs, but they work it out. Once they’ve settled in, a little awkwardly, a thought pops to the front of Mike’s mind. “Can I ask you something?”

Max lifts one shoulder. “Sure.”

Mike presses his lips together in preparation for her response. “I... I thought you… hated Billy.”

It’s a difficult subject to broach, considering his slip-up yesterday, but Mike figures they have to address it. Wary of Max’s somber expression, he keeps talking. “I hate my sister too, sometimes, so I get that. You know, a sibling thing. But it was different with you and Billy. He was...”

“Awful?” Max finishes. “Yeah.” She lifts her chin, eyes growing distant as she remembers. “He used to break my stuff, like, all the time. He harassed any friends I had. So I didn’t have many. He made fun of me, he got into fights, he swore at everyone.” She shrugs. “But I could take it. I was never... scared that he would hurt _me_. Not until...”

Until July.

The trauma only hangs there for a few seconds before Max continues. “There were good moments with the bad. Whenever he made me cry, when we were younger, he always gave me something to make it better. Like one of his toys or food I liked or we’d watch a movie. And he would close the door to my room and sit with me whenever our parents fought. He’d tell me dumb stuff about the girls he was dating. It was kind of sexist, actually.”

Mike can see that as a potential character trait of Billy’s. “And, after the incident with Steve, he pretty much left me alone. Or, at least, he left you guys alone. So I guess we were in a… comfortable place. He was never really nice to me once he started high school, anyway. I was used to it.”

She stops there, like what’s coming next is hard to say, and Mike watches her face while he braces himself for whatever misery he’s about to take on.

“It was just... we spent six years as siblings. And I miss him.” She huffs a laugh. “He was such a dick, but I miss him. Without him, it’s like. It’s just me against my parents and it used to be... us.”

Mike can understand. Not the loss, but he has Nancy, and it’s always been them against Ted and Karen. Even when they stopped being close, they were still on the same side. Mike can’t imagine losing that.

A skinny tear makes its way down Max’s cheek and she wipes it quickly with a sniff. “It just gets lonely without him here.”

“I’m sorry.” It seems insufficient. “That sucks.” _Wow, he’s bad at this_.

Max is impervious to his comfort deficiency. “Yeah, well, life sucks.”

They’re probably too young to have already established that, but they’re also too young to have faced down supernatural horrors more than once. Too young to have so many people torn away from them. “Yeah,” Mike agrees. “Tell me about it.”

Max side-eyes him. “You thinking about El?”

He was, and he wasn’t. But he’d rather talk about her than Will, so he gives in and sighs. “It’s like the universe doesn’t want us to be together. Like, every time I have her, I have to give her up again.”

Max hums in recognition of his frustration, but one look at her face tells Mike all he needs to know.

“You never liked us together.” It’s obvious in the way she’s struggling to be sympathetic about their broken relationship.

“I… didn’t like how codependent you were,” is all Max says.

Mike scoffs. “Well, you would be, too if you’d lost her for a year.”

Max is quiet at that. “Yeah, I bet I would.”

Again, Mike narrows his eyes at her. “You really like her.”

She seems startled by this fact. “Yeah...?”

It’s obvious then, again. That he’s the problem. “So, you don’t like me?”

Max opens her mouth, closes it, and presses a hand to the bridge of her nose. “Mike, would I be sitting here pouring my heart out to you if I didn’t find you…” She stops to look at him. “… at least tolerable?”

Mike raises his eyebrows. “Wow.”

Max doesn’t give him time to be offended, just waves her hand. “You’re difficult. So am I. We clash.”

She says it so simply. Mike shakes his head at the reality. “I clash with everyone.”

“So do I,” Max repeats. “That’s why we work.”

Mike can sort of see it. While loathe to admit it, they do share character traits that make them… hard to talk to at times. They’re kind of… counterparts in the friend group. Their friction sort of balances everything out.

Still, he has to tease her. “ _Do_ we work?”

Max just seems exasperated. “I don’t know, Mike. You did save my life. But you save everyone, right?”

That gives him pause. Does she really think that? “Max...”

She swivels her head with a look of dull expectancy.

“I like you,” Mike says weakly. “You’re cool. And, I mean... I’d save your life again.”

Clearly, he hasn’t wooed her. “Thanks,” she replies sarcastically. “I hope you don’t have to.”

Mike hopes so, too, but he’s not in the business of being optimistic. “Something tells me the shit show isn’t over.”

Max grimaces. “I get that feeling, too.”

“We might have to face it without them,” Mike murmurs.

It’s the first time he’s said that out loud. Actually, it’s the first time he’s even thought it. And fuck if that doesn’t scare him to death.

Max sounds equally distressed. “Can we?” Mike glances over to see her floundering. “We’re… ordinary. Will and El, they’re the ones with the connection to the upside down. What can we do that they can’t?”

Mike is trying to figure out if she’s being ironic but something tells him she isn’t. “Max…” he starts. “You have no idea how valuable you were. Both times. Weren’t you the one who figured out there was something wrong with Billy? Weren’t you the one who got him to leave us alone? And then drove us to the tunnels? And you helped me see that El— that she had to risk her life, to help us. That we were all risking our lives.”

He trails off, unsure how the conversation has devolved into him praising her. “You’re, like... the voice of reason. Or whatever.”

Max smirks. “ _Or whatever_ ,” she mocks him.

“Shut up.”

While keeping it light, she looks pensive. “You’re like that too, you know. Not exactly the voice of reason, but you take initiative. You’re like… the glue.”

 _The glue?_ “What?” Mike squints at her.

“I’m serious. You keep everyone together. Do you really think this would be a friend group without you? Weren’t you the one who convinced the others to accept El? And weren’t you the one who brought Will and Dustin and Lucas together in the first place?”

Mike stutters. “Yeah, I guess, but they’re the ones who brought you on board. And I…” He doesn’t need to tell her what happened after that. He twists his mouth. “I’m sorry I was such a jerk to you.”

Max tilts her head as though thinking. “It’s funny that you put that in past tense.”

That shakes a self-deprecating laugh out of him. Because yeah. But it gets him thinking about his constant state of assholery manifesting in different forms as he progresses through puberty.

“I wasn’t a very good friend this summer.” The admission stirs a flash of his confrontation with Will— which he immediately shuts out of his mind. “I was too focused on El. Having all this time with her.” He clenches his jaw. “Now she’s gone. And I probably don’t have her at all.”

That scares him. He’s spent all this time protecting her, clinging to her, and she’s slipped right through his fingers. Without her, he feels like so much of his livelihood, his motivation, is gone. ~~And without Will so is his happiness.~~

After a sympathetic pause, Max bumps his shoulder. “I wouldn’t be so sure. Even if she hasn’t radioed you. I think she just needs time.”

Mike looks at her, questioning. “Time for what?”

She shrugs. “Maybe… to realize she won’t be seeing you every day. To accept that.” Mike watches her struggle to admit the next part. “You know… despite the codependency issues, it was really sweet of you to be there for her.” Quickly, she adds, “Although, I’m not sure how anyone could take that much of you.”

Mike throws her a sarcastic smile. “Yeah, I’m not sure how Lucas takes so much of you.”

“Well, he doesn’t anymore since I broke up with him,” Max slips in casually. “For the sixth and final time.”

Mike blinks out of his own thoughts. He… didn’t see that coming. “Really? Why?”

It takes a while for her to respond, and when she does her tone is unusually measured, reserved. “We… don’t work. In that way. We’re better off as friends.”

That doesn’t make much sense to Mike. But what does these days anyway? At least it gets him thinking about his next question, which he ponders extensively before asking. “Do you think… we could be friends?”

Max shoots him a look. “Mike. We already are.”

She says it like he was supposed to know, and, okay, they’ve been in the same friend group for almost a year, but being friends on their own is… new. He can tell she feels the same in the shy way she nudges her knee against his.

It’s a nice moment, until…

“You’re just an asshole.”

Of course. Mike rolls his eyes. “Alright. And you’re annoying.”

“As it has always been, so shall it always be,” Max proclaims dramatically.

They laugh through the awkwardness, but Mike feels inexplicably better. And a little piece of him that was carried away with El and Will slides back into place.

~<:>~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I friend-ship it. Any Stranger Things fic that I write is ripe with Max & Mike so obviously yeah. The pure of heart/dumb of ass and lesbian alliance.


	2. Chapter 2

“Why don’t you want to talk about Will?”

Mike frowns. “What?”

They’re sitting in the junkyard, on the back of a rusted pick-up truck. They’ve been doing this for a few weeks now— the whole ‘being friends and talking about life’ thing. Especially since they started ninth grade, which is turning out to be less of a disaster than Mike anticipated, but it’s still not great. Lucas and Dustin are right there with him, of course, but Max is... different. She gets it, somehow.

And she reads him way too easily for how short a time she’s known him. Mike actually preferred talking to someone other than Lucas or Dustin so that he’d be able to deflect when he wanted to. That isn’t the case with Max anymore. Sure, she’s created a space where the two of them can be vulnerable without judgement. Hell, at this point, they can pretty much say anything without judgement.

But Mike’s still scared. To talk about Will.

Max, who hasn’t pressured him to up until this point, shrugs. “You always talk about El.” _Yes, because El is a comfortable subject and he’s used to rambling on about her._ “But… Will’s gone, too,” Max continues, pushing her eyebrows together. “Don’t you miss him?”

Mike’s heart is in his throat. “Yeah.”

“So why don’t you ever talk about it?”

Mike has no idea what possessed Max to finally bring this up, but he supposes she’s let him off the hook long enough and, after all, it is in her personality to push him past his comfort zone. He tries to play it off. “What’s there to talk about?”

That, pointedly, does not work.

Max turns her whole body to face him, glaring. “Hey, asshole, I’ve been here for you. With El. With everything. Don’t tell me there’s nothing you wanna say. I know you better than that, alright? Suck it up, cuz I do.”

That doesn’t give Mike much room to argue. What an aggravating development to having Max as a friend.

In his defense, he really tries.

“It’s not…” he starts. “I guess…”

Max raises her eyebrows expectantly.

Mike sighs. “I guess there’s too much to say. I don’t know where to start.” Or, if he should tell her anything at all.

“Start at the beginning,” Max suggests.

Mike snorts. “Well, the beginning was kindergarten, so I’m not gonna start there.”

Instead of making a clever comment, Max scrutinizes him with something hidden behind her eyes. “But there’s another beginning,” she says. “Isn’t there?”

For a long moment, Mike just stares at her, completely lost. “What?”

“Well, there’s the beginning of a friendship,” Max explains. “And then, somewhere along the way, it becomes something stronger.” Her gaze softens. “There’s not always a moment, but there’s a point where you realize...”

She half-cuts herself off, clearing her throat, as though pulling back from saying something too personal. “Um, where you understand that… it’s evolved.”

Mike’s confusion is wearing off now and he really doesn’t want her to be implying what he thinks she’s implying. “You mean from a friend to a best friend?”

Max looks at him the way she does when he’s being ‘impossible’, and shakes her head. “Yeah, Mike. Whatever you want to call it.”

That triggers his defensive irritation. “What else would I call it?”

“Look, I was just trying to get you to talk about Will,” Max says, raising her voice. “Why is it so hard? To talk about him?”

 _It’s not_ , Mike wants to say, but he can’t bring himself to lie. So he evades. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Fucking try me,” Max snaps, and Mike starts enough to see the fire in her eyes. It dies down with her next words, which she delivers all too cryptically. “Mike, I can probably understand better than anyone else.”

Mike doesn’t know how to respond, because how could she? “It feels like we’re talking about two different things here,” he says, and it’s a desperate cry for her to stop confusing him while she’s ahead, but of course she doesn’t.

“We’re talking about Will,” Max says, like it’s obvious, and Mike can _feel_ the tension inside him rising with every word. ~~_Please stop please stop please stop_~~ “Why _can’t_ you talk about him?” Max demands. “What is _wrong_?”

“Everything!” Mike snaps. “Okay? _Everything_ is wrong because I’m supposed to be missing El, but I can’t get him out of my head— I can’t—”

 _He shouldn’t have said that, he shouldn’t have said that, he shouldn’t feel this way, and he needs to breathe but the panic in his chest is far too constricting, screaming at him and pulling him apart from all directions_ —

“Mike?”

Max has her hand on his shoulder and he realizes that he has his palms pressed to his forehead. And the look in her eyes is enough to make him want to stay, but he’s scared.

So he evades.

“I can’t do this,” he mutters, brushing her hand off and jumping down from the truck bed to stalk away.

“Mike!”

He gets to his bike before she calls his name again, and then he’s pedaling as fast as he can, away from it all, hard enough to make his mind go blank.

~<:>~

That plan backfires, as his muscle memory carries him to the empty Byers’ house.

It stands there mocking him, an irrevocable monument to his loss and confusion. Come to think of it, why the hell hasn’t he come here before? It’s quiet, deserted, safe. And the perfect place to fail at resolving his sprawling emotional issues.

He leans his bike against the _For Sale_ sign and walks, in a daze, up the front steps. The door is unlocked, and Mike briefly considers that someone may be squatting here, but that notion is banished quickly.

It’s all untouched. He stands in the doorway, looking around at the place he used to consider a second home. It feels enormous without all the furniture, void without all the life that came and went through its walls.

That prompts Mike to run his fingers along the front wall, where there was once a Joyce Byers-plus-axe-made hole, and he can feel the edges of the break deviate from the rest of the wall. At least there’s some character left in the house.

This is gut-wrenching. This is the type of pain that demands to be felt every single second of consciousness. Mike wonders how everyone else just goes about their days when there’s this much loss echoing inside of them.

Maybe there isn't. Maybe it's just him.

He leaves the front door open and retreats to Will’s room.

Max finds him a few hours later, just before the sun sets. Mike can hear the creak of her footsteps before she appears in the doorway, looking more concerned than angry. “Hey,” she offers, but doesn’t enter.

She doesn’t ask what he’s doing here and Mike doesn’t ask how she found him. They’ve accepted the connection they share as tentative at best and find it fit not to question how it works.

Max folds her arms into her chest and gazes around at the blank walls. “Don’t you think it’s… weird? That no one’s bought it?”

“No.” Mike gets to his feet deftly. “I think it’s good.” He wanders over to where Max is standing, more confident than he was earlier. “I’d buy it, just to keep it...”

 _Safe_.

“Just...” He clenches his jaw. “I don’t want anyone else living here. I couldn’t stand it.”

Max is staring at him quietly, and they fall into one of their comfortable silences. Although it’s clear Max is waiting for him to speak his mind and fuck if he doesn’t want to do just that. He’s thought about it for hours now and he knows it would help to work it out, lift the weight a little, if he tried saying _something_. Out loud.

Slowly, he moves into the arch between Will’s room and the hallway. Braces his hand on the wood and lets himself _remember_. “Before he left…” His voice cuts smoothly into the quiet. “We were standing here. In this doorway and I looked at him, just to...” _Just to memorize his face_. “It felt like he was going to disappear again and I wanted to—”

He brings the corner of his hand to his mouth and brushes it off, like he’s trying to wipe the words away. Suddenly, the doorway is the wrong place to be and he shoulders his way past Max, striding all the way out to the front porch. ~~_Always running away from how he feels_~~.

Max follows him after a beat and they sit on the steps like nothing just happened. Like they’re both still waiting for Mike to say something.

And fuck, he’s in it now. So he might as well get the heaviest thing off his chest. It doesn’t have to mean anything— it’s only guilt. _It’s only guilt_.

“Do you remember,” he starts. “Back in July when everything happened, that night it was raining? You and El were super mad at us and the next morning I called you.”

Max gives a soft nod. “Yeah.”

 _Here we go_. Mike sighs. “That night, Will took off from our campaign— his campaign, actually. Lucas and I were kinda being jerks. So, he went to get on his bike, and I followed him, and then we were...” He has to pause, and he knows Max won’t understand why right away. “Um, we were under my garage roof. That’s where we were... where we were right before he disappeared into the upside down, two years ago.”

Max’s apprehension comes off her in waves at that, but Mike can’t look at her. He shakes his head. “I don’t know, I got scared. I didn’t want him to leave… but then we were fighting all of a sudden, and I said… an idiotic thing, and it messed everything up.”

He’s tried so hard to avoid reliving this moment, but that doesn’t stop it from playing over and over in his head. He swallows. “I was being defensive. Because he called our obsession with girls stupid, so I told him, it’s not my fault... he doesn’t like girls.”

Once it’s out there, he feels marginally better, until he’s swimming in his own guilt and now Max knows what a shit friend he is. “Oh,” she says. “Wow.”

Mike’s stomach is in knots and he feels sweatier than usual. “I didn’t mean to say it. I didn’t mean to make him feel—” _Like a freak. Like Mike was judging him. ~~Like Mike could ever hate him~~_ ~~.~~ “And things have been weird between us since.”

His inward spiral is interrupted by Max’s blunt response. “Why?” she asks. “I mean, isn’t it true?”

He looks up at her, the way he does when _she’s_ being impossible. “Not to be insensitive,” she quickly corrects. “Obviously you shouldn’t have said that but you were fighting so I mean—” She sighs. “I just mean, why is it weird if it’s true?”

“If it’s true he doesn’t like girls?” Mike repeats, surprised at her indifference. “His whole life is fucked. He’s gonna be cut off from what he wants or have to hide who he is, do you know how hard—”

 _Shit. Wrong phrasing. ‘Can you imagine’ not ‘do you know’, because he’s not supposed to know, he can’t know, and now Max will think_ —

“Yeah, Mike,” she says quietly. “I… do.”

He blinks. _Did she just_ —

“Wait, you…” Mike hesitates, searching her face. “You—”

“Do like girls,” Max confirms. “Yeah. Opposite of Will.”

 _Wow_. She doesn’t waver when she says it and Mike feels a dash of envy at her confidence. And then he feels unbelievably guilty that she would trust him with that and he can’t even trust her to talk about his… thing.

“You find me weird now?”

He’s been thinking too long, so the question takes a beat to register, and then he’s stumbling for the right words. “No, of course not! I have nothing against it, it’s just that society—”

“Fuck society, Mike,” Max says, exasperated. “Why couldn’t you just talk to Will? Apologize or… say something to comfort him?”

“Well there wasn’t exactly time was there?” Mike counters, panic rising. “Between El losing her powers and him moving, I— it was pretty much just there in the doorway that I wanted to say something but I blew it because I’m— I’m a coward and I’ve always been a coward—”

“Mike, stop.” Max has both hands on his forearm. “Breathe for a second, okay?”

He’s shaking, but he tries to follow her advice, and she moves one hand, carefully, to his back, coaxing the anxiety out of him. “You’re okay. It’s okay.”

“No, you don’t get it,” Mike tries to shout, but it comes out weak.

“Mike.” Max waits for him to look her in the eye. “I’m pretty sure I do.”

But she doesn’t. _It’s not the same. He just wanted Will to know he wasn’t alone, not that there was anything more that could exist between them_. But Max doesn’t need to hear his excuses.

He looks over at her self-consciously. “Um, it’s… it’s really cool that you like girls.” There’s a blush creeping up his neck now. “I mean, not _cool_ , but like. Yeah.”

Max shakes her head, but she’s almost smiling. “Thanks. Asshole.”

The nickname comforts him, gives him permission to press her further. “Is… that why you broke up with Lucas six times?”

“No, I broke up with Lucas six times because he’s an idiot,” Max states, calming Mike even more as they share a look of amusement, acknowledging Lucas’s idiocy as a fact. “But yeah,” Max admits. “I— he’s a great guy, so I thought, maybe I could…”

She shrugs, looking sad all of a sudden. Mike angles his body a little closer, keeps his gaze on her face so she knows he’s listening. “I guess, in the end, it was good,” she says, and it’s clear she’s rebuilding her composure. “It helped me figure out… what I want.”

That, out of nowhere, sends Mike’s heart racing, and he’s terrified all over again. “I don’t know what I want.”

And even though there’s a part of him screaming that Max will understand, it’s consumed by the part of him that can’t handle this— whatever this is, and his denial flares.

Max gives him an infuriating look of sympathy. “It’s okay, Mike.”

“No, you _think_ you know me, but you don’t!” He stands, blood pounding in his ears. “I’m not like you!”

He catches the flash of hurt in her eyes, but it hardens quickly, and she sneers at him. “What, you don’t like girls?”

 _Shit_. “No— I mean, yes, I do,” he says firmly. “I do.”

Max looks like she believes him. “But...?”

She’s waiting for him to admit something he can’t even admit to himself. All this secrecy barricaded behind the fact that he loves El and girls make him flustered and he’s perfectly— _perfectly_ —

“Ugh!”

Mike turns on his heel and heads in the opposite direction of his bike. Somehow he knows Max won’t follow him.

She still shouts in exasperation. “Mike, you can’t keep walking away from this!”

“Yeah?” he bites back. “Watch me.”

~<:>~

He’s lost in Mirkwood.

Which comes as no surprise when he considers how lost he’s been, in his head, all this time.

This isn’t what Max thinks it is. He doesn’t feel that way towards Will. It’s El— it’s always been El. He loves her, and he has to protect her, and he can’t live without her...

Will is different. Will’s eyes are familiarity and his smile is reassurance and his voice is home. That doesn’t mean Mike— it doesn’t mean—

Mike has to stop, brace himself against a tree. When he looks up, he catches a glimpse of broken sticks and a torn flag. Castle Byers. Of course.

He trudges over to the hideout’s remains, kicks at the ground. It shouldn’t be this hard to sort out his own feelings. He’s supposed to be a fifteen-year-old boy with a hopeless crush on a pretty girl. Not a fifteen-year-old boy with a hopeless crush on his best friend.

“Shit,” he growls, kicking the ground again.

It wasn’t a problem before. He could keep Will close to him and think about his laugh and pretend there was nothing there. But now he knows there’s something there and he can’t sleep anymore because of it. He can’t think straight.

Obviously. He lets out a humorless chuckle. He is so fucking screwed.

He has feelings for Will. Mike Wheeler has feelings for Will Byers that extend beyond friendship or brotherhood. (He waits, but the earth does not shatter, much to his chagrin.)

Fuck his life. Mike pulls out the picture of him and Will with their backs against the upside down. For once, it doesn’t confuse him. Instead, it makes perfect sense. Except the barrier’s not what he thought it was. It’s worse.

He drops his hand and peers inside at the mess where Will once hid for days just to stay alive. It still rubs Mike the wrong way to see it destroyed. He traces the letters on the wood and wonders when exactly it was that he fell so hard.

“Shit,” he says again. The trees seem to echo his sentiment.

~<:>~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally!! Sorry Mike kind of had a hard time coming to this realization because he's one to live in serious denial. But I'm not a fan of too much angst so there's your angst-filled chapter. Now we can continue with The Gay :) Also sorry this is so rough lol (and yeah I know the Byers’ house was sold at the end of season three but I am tweaking reality here)


	3. Chapter 3

“So, you may have been right.”

Mike hates to hear the words fall from his lips, but he’s been avoiding Max and sulking and stewing in his own thoughts for days now and every conclusion he’s come up with has been in some way related to what she said to him.

Max squints up at him. “I’m always right,” she asserts. “What about?”

Mike takes a seat on the grass beside her. “About why it’s so hard for me to talk about Will.”

Max hums carefully. “I don’t think I said anything…”

“You implied,” Mike reminds her, irritated. “And you were right.”

She chooses to stay quiet at that, much to Mike’s surprise. He supposes this is a hard enough thing to talk about without her antagonistic behavior and she’s mature enough to realize that. Of course, it’s also personal for her.

Mike taps his fingers against the ground. “I’m not saying… I don’t know if…” He grits his teeth. “I like girls, okay? It’s just this one…” ~~Boy. Crush. Friend.~~ “… thing.”

Max nods. “Okay. I believe you.” She’s quiet for a beat. “And, we _don’t_ have to talk about it.” Mike frowns at her, confused, but she just shakes her head. “We don’t.”

“Yeah, but—” Mike fumbles. “But El.”

Max raises her eyebrows. “What about El?”

“Well…”

Mike gestures vaguely, and Max gets the hint. “You still love her.”

“Yeah. Of course I do.”

Max nods slowly, looking pained. “So that’s that, then.”

“What?” Mike thought he was done feeling confused. “No. No, I actually want— I actually _need_ to talk about this.”

Max looks startled. “O…kay…”

“This isn’t simple,” Mike says emphatically. “I can’t just _say_ ‘I love El’ because that’s what I’ve _been_ saying and it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make these other feelings go away.”

Max makes a noise of agreement.

Mike stares at her. “So… what do I do?”

She snaps her head to face him. “You’re asking _me_?”

“Well…” Mike mocks looking around. “There’s no one else to ask!”

“Mike!” Max stands. “I have _no idea_ what you should do. The only thing I know how to do is break up with boys and pine after friends, okay? That’s not the advice you want to follow.”

 _Pine after friends_. It finally clicks. Mike stands, too. “You like El.”

Max’s entire body pales and she struggles to respond.

Mike laughs out loud at what an idiot he’s been. “You want me to break up with her because you _like_ her. That’s why you were trying to get me to talk about Will.”

“Mike, do you always have to assume the worst of me?” Max snaps. “I wanted you to talk about Will because it’s obvious that you’re gone for him and you weren’t going to say anything unless I did. I’m your fucking friend! Is it so hard to believe that I might care about your well-being?”

“My well-being?” Mike repeats. “Since when is confessing my attraction to another guy _good_ for my well-being? I could have gone years without confronting it! I could have lived like a normal person, but you took that away from me!”

“I didn’t _take_ anything from you, Mike!” Max says, voice low. “I woke you the fuck up.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to wake up.”

Max glares at him. “That much is obvious.”

“You know what?” Mike sneers. “You’re the coward. For using me as an excuse not to deal with your own shit. Was it that much of a relief not to hear me talk about El? You’d rather hear me struggle to form the word ‘gay’?”

“So, I may have projected a little!” Max shouts. “I was still right! And it had nothing to do with me and El! I was trying to help _you_ , you stupid, selfish, egotistical _asshole_!”

Her last words echo around the hill, loud enough for Mike to actually hear them.

And then he sees the look on her face, and his own ugly, fearful words come back to sting him. _Shit. This is not how he wanted this to go. He’s a fucking idiot_. “Max…”

“Fuck you, Mike.”

He doesn’t let her walk away this time. “Max!” He reaches for her arm, pursuing her down the hill. “Max, wait!”

She doesn’t let him close enough, rips her arm away every time, and when he finally grabs it, she turns and shoves his chest, sending him stumbling backwards.

Mike catches his breath, but she keeps coming, attacking him, and he has to throw up his hands to block her, but she’s fucking quick and she’s not holding back. “Max—”

“Fuck!” she snarls. “You!” And she keeps hitting him until it starts to hurt her, too. And then her attacks slow down and Mike stops trying to keep her at bay. He wraps his arms around her and lets her pummel him.

“I’m sorry,” he says, over and over, hoping she’ll hear him. “I’m sorry.”

And eventually, she stops. And they stand there, breathing, for a little while. And Mike holds her tighter for a second. “I’m sorry.” Then he loosens his arms to look her in the face. “Really, I'm sorry.”

Her eyes are a little red, but she mostly just looks angry. “I was being an asshole,” Mike relents. “I’m sorry.” He thinks it’s the most he’s apologized in his entire life. “It’s just—everything about this scares me. And I thought blaming you for it would make it go away, but that’s dumb.” He lets go of her shoulders. “I’m an idiot. And an asshole.”

Max crosses her arms, and he notices her hands are red as well. “Are you okay?” he asks tentatively.

She actually laughs at that. “Mike, I just hit you, like, forty times in the chest, and you’re asking me if _I’m_ okay?”

Mike grins. “Yeah, you were pretty aggressive. But I kind of deserved it.”

“Uh, you _totally_ deserved it,” she corrects.

They stare at each other for a long moment, in an interrupted way where they’re dodging each other’s eyes when they meet. Mike feels even more guilty in the silence, and even more of an asshole when he sees the hurt and conflict on Max’s face.

She finally sighs. “I know, it’s rough. I mean, it’s not like I was suddenly okay with liking girls overnight. It took me years.”

 _Years?_ “How long ago did you realize it?” Mike asks.

Max shrugs. “I always knew that I was different. I just didn’t know how. So, when all the girls started liking boys and I didn’t… that gave me a hint.”

She bites her lip, looking guilty. “Um, I’m sorry. About El. It’s true that, for a while, I wanted you guys to break up, but…” She sighs again. “I used to think you were _just_ an asshole. But you’re not, Mike,” she tells him sincerely. “And…”

Mike watches her twist the hem of her shirt, struggling to form words.

She takes a shaky breath. “I’m just gonna say this, because not a lot of people will, and you need to hear it.” She squares her jaw. “There is _nothing_ wrong with you.”

Somehow, it hits harder than her punches. Mike turns the words over in his head, nodding to keep his emotions at bay. _There’s nothing wrong with me, nothing wrong with me, nothing wrong with me_ — and the tears start to prick at the corner of his vision, and he keeps nodding even though he’s failing miserably at believing the sentiment.

Max looks like she’s about to cry now, and she, very suddenly, throws her arms around his neck. Which, unfortunately, knocks her chest into his, and he can’t help letting out a soft, “Ow.”

“Oh, sorry!” Max says, pulling back, but Mike hugs her before she can let go completely.

It’s more comfort than he deserves. He holds onto it anyway, letting himself cry where she can’t see him. “Thank you,” he says quietly.

~<:>~

So, they pretty much become official friends. For the second time. But now, they can talk about this… stuff without being put off or pissing each other off or running away from the conversation.

By the time November rolls around, they still haven’t really ‘figured out’ what to do about their respective feelings for El and Will. But their two friends are coming for Thanksgiving, so they’re going to have to decide sooner or later.

Max has told Mike about a hundred times that she is not going to purposefully get in the way of anything between him and El. Mike has told Max about a hundred times that, given the circumstances, there probably is no him and El.

Still, Mike does need to talk to her. To both of them. He may not be ready, but if he’s learned anything from the upside-down, it’s that he won’t get to decide when the right time is. They have to seize the moment. 

And right now, Mike Wheeler wants to kiss the shit out of Will Byers.

~<:>~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know-- I said I was done with angst and I apologize. Mike & Max are volatile creatures and this is a rough topic. Also, pretty spicy interpersonal relationships. Anyway, hope you enjoyed and I also hope I'll have the sequel to this up... at some point. Thanks for reading!


End file.
